The will-he, won’t-he debate of the past week has been put to bed. The country will go to the polls to elect the 32nd Dáil some time in the spring of 2016. Speaking on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics on Sunday, An Taoiseach Enda Kenny put to bed the rumours of a November election – rumours which he had done little to suppress for a week before that.

However, the pressure built on Kenny and it would appear that the Labour party has more credence and sway in cabinet circles than its 9% in the polls suggests. The Irish Farmers Journal poll at the time of the Ploughing had Labour at a paltry 1%.

The Tánaiste and Labour leader Joan Burton entered the fray saying that she would prefer a spring 2016 election, clearly still waiting for the Burton bounce in the polls.

Then deputy Labour leader and Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly waded into the debate. Kelly said Kenny is an honourable man and that he would keep his previous promise of a spring 2016 election.

Of course, the message between the lines there was that calling a winter election would have been the dishonourable thing to do.